A circular economic model is the vehicle required for change within the specialty coffee industry. When we operate along a continuous circle across our supply chain, we can build wealth and expertise alongside coffee farmers, rather than in spite of them.

Current leading trends in specialty coffee primarily tie company resources to increasing coffee farm production and quality through capacity building and agricultural inputs. While production and quality investments at coffee origin are necessary components to any "sustainable" trading model in the coffee industry, increasing agricultural support (under the guise of combating climate change) fall grossly short from anything even close to what our coffee-growing friends would call "sustainable."

A primary focus on climate change and cost of production skirts past addressing the basic needs of people and their communities. In order to enact change, we coffee companies need to do more than talk.

Coffee could change the world. But first we need a disruptive innovation to evolve our trading system. This post is the first of four installments diving deep into the issue of true sustainability in the coffee industry, written by HG cofounder Chris Treter. [ Part 2: Price Matters a lot, and...